The material in the printer doesn’t matter in your case.
If it skips an area when engraving, it’s either a file, software or hardware issue. They would support you via tech support for hardware and software issues.
If it’s an issue with your file, they probably won’t fix your file for you (they may want a copy to troubleshoot and see if there is a bug in their software). However, I’m sure someone in this forum will be more than happy to help you. There are lots of experienced designers here. I’ve seen a few people post the file and problem and get lots of help and suggestions.
Note that they often ask you to run your file again using a Proofgrade when this happens. (This is why they’ve started including an extra piece of Draftboard with every machine with instructions to save it until Support asks you to use it.)
Maybe they are using the Julian calendar. It’s 13 days behind ours, so GF has 26 days to meet the Oct. 31st deadline
Or maybe they are going by the Ethiopian calendar. It’s between 2009-2010 on that one. If so, they should be able to deliver all units and filters before their Dec. 2015 deadline.
(Dan, I’m only kidding. Please don’t move my GF to the back of the line for these comments).
I believe this is part of the reasoning behind giving us a free ‘keep only for Support tests’ sheet of proofgrade - to ensure that if there is a problem there will always be PG available.
Indeed, this is how we calculate as well (and for the same reasons - we know when it departs and not arrives).
Based on feedback here, we’ve been trying to use the term “start the shipping process” to refer to when we dispatch the email. Since we try to be quick in replies, though, we don’t copy-edit everything, and we may be a little inconsistent. Apologies in advance if that happens.
This is incorrect - it could also be a materials issue. I can think of at least three cases where that was the cause of that particular symptom, in fact.
This is part of the problem. The average person hears “shipping” or “start the shipping process” and thinks the item is already built, tested and is being picked up by a shipping company that day.
From your previous posts “Start the shipping process” roughly involves first entering the requisition into a queue, then turning over the queue to a company who will manufacture and test the product. I think that everyone agrees that this will take some time and accounts for the bulk of the “up to 6 weeks” wait.
The confusion being pointed out here is the liberal use of the word shipping when it’s not actually ready to ship yet. I think you need to steer clear of phrases that include the word shipping unless you mean a shipping company is accepting custody of the product and will put it into a vehicle en route to a customer.
On a similar note, the phrase “shipping date” should refer to the day the item is going to board a vehicle and be en route to the customer.
Why was the original decision made to use the word “shipping” to refer to when an email is sent, rather than saving that word for when the product is shipped? Other than the delays, that word seems to have caused the most confusion and anger around here. It never really made sense to refer to that part of the process as shipping. I assume you originally intended to go from email to actual shipping of the product in a shorter timeframe, so maybe that’s why “shipping” was chosen to encompass the whole process. There are still people who aren’t aware that “shipping” doesn’t actually mean shipping in this case, which I guess explains why you’re now moving away from using that term. Whatever the reason, it doesn’t really matter much now, but I was just wondering. I’m still looking forward to my “shipping” email and my shipping email.
I think the implication that your response initiates the build of your machine is probably why they don’t do that. We’re playing semantic games, I know, but my interpretation (e.g. reading the tea leaves at the bottom of Dan’s cup - er messages) is that once a positive response is received, a GlowForge already scheduled to be built is associated with that order. So it’s not that they’re waiting on an individual’s response to start building his/her GlowForge, but rather that they’re not allocating a GlowForge from the production line to a particular person until they receive that response. Now assuming that the allocation is taking place based on the factory’s planned output of GlowForge units, it likely means that allocation could happen before the build on the GlowForge is even begun. So from that perspective, it might appear that they don’t build the unit until you reply. But if they have a lull in responses, I doubt they stop the production line.
I am hoping either that their quality metrics have improved dramatically, and/or the allocation isn’t to a specific unit, but rather to a logical sequence number of units passing their Quality Control checks. It would suck to have them pre-allocate to a specific unit, only to have the pre-allocated unit fail QC, and the shipment be delayed either as they attempt to remedy the problem, or because they have to allocate a new unit for you in the production queue.
It would have been better to use the expression “Complete (or Finalize) the Order Fulfillment”, a process that began years ago with pre-orders, but resumes when sending emails asking people (as part of point 8, below) to confirm they still want what they ordered. Step 9 kicks off in short order after people respond to the email.
Customers don’t get decoupled from the process until completing step 8.
The dreaded six-week wait happens in step 9.
UPS shipment occurs at step 10.
It buys them six weeks. They used it to announce they were shipping at the BAMF in May. They also used to claim they were shipping the first pros in June and again in the recent Geekwire atricle:
Our goal was to ship all units ordered during the 30 day crowdfunding campaign by the end of the month, but we’re not going to make it. We’re only going to be able to ship to day 23 (for people who ordered a Basic model) and day 26 (for people who ordered a Pro).
None of these statements are true with the real world definition of shipping. The Geekwire statement looks like they only just missed the October deadline but that is not the case.
Incidently, Supply Change Management (SCMA) is a BSc and MSc-level course in most countries, and none of them define “Shipment” as anything but the transport of finished goods to the customer.
People confuse this with Business Process, which is not the same thing.
A Business Process associates activities to individual business units, such as “Orders” belonging to Sales (or Customer Service), “Production” belonging to Factory, “Shipment” belonging to Shipping/Receiving (Warehouse).
Glowforge has given indications that they are working with SCMA terminology and workflows. People confusing “shipments start when I respond to my email” with actual physical shipping tend to be talking about a business process.
Just in case @dan or anyone else at glowforge wonders why the community at large looses their collective crap over wording and other things… it’s because the communication coming out of glowforge is severly lacking and often misleading. It’s not like you have to read between the lines or anything… people have been pretty dang blunt about it. We’ve seen delay… delay… delay. And then some of the explanations come out as, ‘well… we didn’t mean the words they way you were using them.’
As someone that works in an industry that employs a lot of automation for customer notifications and site update… you guys may need to hire someone that can do that. I can only guess you are updating things manually and that is not helping the poor communication situation. The banner does not move for at least a week at a time and then you guys added the estimated “ship” thing in our profiles. Except… that day has come and gone and the information shown has not changed. For instance:
Today is the 19th. This is what I see on my account:
“Your estimated date will be updated regularly as new information becomes available”
or… not.
And yes… I’ve checked my spam folder and all that good stuff. I’ve been doing email for a VERY long time… I know how it works.
It’s the little things like this that pile up that create the crisis of confidence in the company that exists. That crisis most often turns into outrage and epic threads of not so happy campers.
The delayed shipments are what they are… but I am very seriously concerned about the longevity of Glowforge the company given that in two years the communication issue has not been addressed or corrected very much. This does not bode well for a $2000 dollar box that requires Glowforge to stay in business in order for it to work since you are cloud based. If Glowforge closes the doors and turns out the lights… all the glowforges go dark as well unless someone starts hacking to get them to work. That is a very scary proposition.
When you started this project and you got the funding you did in pre-sales it was easy to make the decision to use something that depends on cloud based software. Two years later though… less easy. And Two Years in the computer industry is millennia. The “cloud” has changed quite a bit the last two years (and not often for the better).
I always thought they were including a couple sheets of PG because it’d be odd to receive this tool and not have any approved materials to cut with it right out of the box. Like when I was a kid my parents would gave me electronic toys but didn’t have any batteries in the house till January.
